Sweet Redemption (Love & Legacy #6)

Prologue

SERENA

Three Years Ago

“Serena . . .” The sound of my name on his lips has always been my undoing. Always. For what feels like a lifetime, all Hendrix Sinclair ever had to do to break down every single wall I’ve had was whisper my name.

A million memories flood my veins.

Pictures flash like old home movies.

Vivid memories. Sensory memories.

Ones I can touch and taste and smell.

Memories I get utterly lost in.

The scent of the ocean on his warm skin. Always warm to my cold.

Hiding from my parents . . . his brothers . . . from our families.

Fighting. Making up. Doing it all over again. And again.

In silence.

In secret.

Breaking hearts.

His and mine.

They all come crashing down, their weight crushing my already splintered soul.

“Hendrix . . .” His name rips softly from my lips as I empty the last drops of red wine from the bottle, square my shoulders, and force myself to look back at the phone screen.

I know this man’s face as well as I know my own.

I’ve traced every line. Memorized every small scar and freckle.

Warm sandy-brown hair always just on the right side of too long.

Scruff lining his beautifully chiseled jaw.

Tonight, even the faint light breaking through the darkness can’t hide the stress I recognize hiding in those crystalline eyes.

And I swear to God, that’s what breaks me.

Because I know why this man is stressed, even if I don’t want to accept it.

Even if I would give every last breath left in my body for it not to be . . .

“Is it true?”

Oh God, even asking . . . giving sound to my nightmare . . . the pain is excruciating.

He sits up, his bare chest flexing with the movement before the phone jostles and the ceiling comes into focus momentarily.

Christ, Hendrix . . . When he finally rights the phone again, he’s sitting on his couch in his living room in Chicago, the one I wish I didn’t know as well as I do. The one I swore I’d stay away from.

But as much as I’ve always known I had to, I never could stay away from this man.

Not completely.

Even when I begged him to do it for me.

“Tell me I’m wrong . . .” I don’t want to be this woman. Desperate and needy. But here I am. “Please, Hendrix.” I stifle a sob as his jaw flexes, and those gorgeous blue eyes I love more than my own life look away. There’s so much pain there. Hiding in plain sight.

The breath I suck in might as well be wrapped in razor blades with the red-hot agony that spreads through my chest. “Oh God—it’s true.”

Clenching his jaw, Hendrix forces his eyes back to the screen . . . and it’s gone.

Every single trace of the boy I’ve spent my entire life loving is obliterated.

Replaced with this man I no longer know.

“Why do you care, Serena? You said no.” His words are so damn quiet, they should be hard to hear.

They’re not.

Every word shatters my world a little more.

The ones he says and all the ones left unsaid between us.

I want him to yell at me.

To be angry. Furious.

Fight with me the way we always have.

That was always us.

But not now.

Not this time.

Never again.

This time, I’m not met with anger. I’m met with indifference.

And my God, that hurts so much worse.

We stare at each other in silence. Two complete strangers who know every single thing there is to know about one another. Until I finally break.

“You said she was just your friend,” I whisper, knowing I should hang up. Knowing there’s no fixing this. Not this time. I finally pushed him away hard enough for him not to come back.

I did this. I begged for this. For us to be over.

I should be relieved.

But I can’t be.

Not tonight.

“Hendrix . . .” the voice interrupting us is soft and sweet with a familiar lilt I’d know anywhere. I’ve heard it a million times since Hendrix met Brittany his freshman year at Kroydon University. She’s been his best friend since then, and that was okay.

She had his secrets.

She saw him every day.

But I had his heart.

Until I didn’t.

Until now.

“Go back to bed, Britt.” He looks away from me, and I can’t breathe. “I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

“Okay . . .”

When he looks back, we stare at each other in an almost eerie silence. My heartbeat dying inside my chest the only sound as Brittany walks away. “You said you were just friends.”

“We were—we are,” he corrects himself, and my knuckles turn white as they grip the marble counter, holding me up as my legs give out beneath me. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“She’s pregnant with your baby, Hendrix.” I choke on a sob but refuse to give it voice. “That’s not something that happens between friends,” I bite back, unwilling to give him my pain but not bothering to mask the anger. “With. Your. Baby.”

Hendrix is quiet as he stares at me. But tonight, those eyes that have seen me at my best and worst look through me, not at me.

“She’s my best friend, Serena. And, yeah, she’s going to be the mother of my kid, but .

. .”—his next words catch on a heavy sigh as he drags his fingers through his eternally messy hair—“it should have been you.”

Oh God.

“It was never going to be me,” I whisper while tears burn the backs of my eyes, knowing no matter how much I wished things could have been different, this was how it was always going to end.

Him finally moving on. And me staying exactly where I am.

Heartbroken.

Or maybe just broken.

“After the first round of playoffs a few months ago . . .” He drags his hand over his face and sighs, and the simple sound is devastating. “It doesn’t matter. The baby is mine, Serena. What else was I supposed to do?”

God, it hurts . . . My head, my heart, my fucking soul . . .

“You don’t have to marry her, Hendrix.” The words are barely a whisper falling from my lips before they’re lost in the night.

In my head, I yell them.

In my heart, I get through to him.

In reality, none of it matters.

It never did and never will.

“You don’t love her like that.” I’m not sure whether I’m trying to convince myself or him. “You can’t.”

“She said yes, Serena . . .”

What he doesn’t bother adding before the call ends is that I never did.